Croatia and “Ethnic Cleansing” Croatia and “Ethnic Cleansing” Akiko Shimizu Introduction There is a computer set up in the permanent Holocaust exhibition in London’s Imperial War Museum, in which, along with Jews, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses and the mentally disabled, “hundreds of thousands” of Serbian residents of the “Independent State of Croatia” (NDH) are listed as victims of genocide. However, in the permanent exhibition dealing with genocide, the massacre of the Serbs earns no mention. It appears that the museum accepts the massacres as fact, but their displays are seemingly set up so as to attract little attention. As this style of exhibition demonstrates, while there are not many who do not know of Auschwitz, there are very few who know of “Jasenovac”. “Jasenovac” is the name for a system of incarceration chambers and concentration camps which existed in the “Independent State of Croatia”. After World War II, it was estimated that between 600,000 and 700,000 people died in this, the largest of the incarceration facilities in Croatia. In the 1990s too, the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”, a major German daily newspaper, gave an estimate of 500,000, while the Holocaust Studies Centre in Washington’s Holocaust Memorial Museum estimates that “at least 250,000” Serbians were killed by the “Croatian authorities” between 1941 and 1943. 1) However, the Republic of Croatia, which gained its independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, has not acknowledged this massacre. In April 1991 (the fiftieth anniversary of Germany’s invasion of Yugoslavia), Tudjman, who became later the first President of Croatia, declared the number of victims to be 30,000. Thus, the state’s official interpretation of “Jasenovac” was that it was a “myth” created by the Serbs. Furthermore, on the 7th of November 1991, President Tudjman claimed the number of victims of Jasenovac was 20,000, at the International Conference for Yugoslavia in the Hague. Later, the Croatian military occupied the Jasenovac Museum, and burned a part of the historical documents and physical evidence of the incidents. At the same time, one of the most significant researchers of the history of NDH Fikret Jelić -Butić was killed. Finally, “The Committee for Establishing the Victims During and After the War” set the number of those killed at Jasenovac as “not exceeding 2,238”. 2) Until now, Croatia has endeavoured to conceal genocide as a state-conducted crime, but in this thesis, the aim will be to demonstrate the genocide-like characteristics of these national crimes systematically, with primary reference to Ustase’s laws, the materials left by Ustase, and works left by Croatian witnesses. (The period of consideration will be chiefly until 1942, when “ethnic cleansing” could be intentionally carried out; the genocide conducted against the Jews and the Romany will be omitted.) 53 Croatia and “Ethnic Cleansing” 1. Reports from Nazi Germany According to a report by the German Foreign Ministry on July 2nd, 1941, reports of the expansion of terrorism so terrible “as to make your hair stand on end” by the Croatians in the Serbian residential areas were received from all regions, and Councilor Troll in Zagreb (temporary proxy ambassador) predicted that due to the increasing militancy in the persecution of the Serbs, Croatia would soon become an uncontrollable lawless zone. There, the “excessive expulsion of Serbs”, was considered “shocking” even by the Nazi Secret Police. 3) The German Plenipotentiary for Southeastern Europe, Neubacher, notes in his memoirs that “of the slogan ‘convert a third to Catholicism, expel a third, kill a third!’, you can say that only the last of these objectives was realized, but to say that one million Serbs were killed as the Ustase leaders did, was arrogant exaggeration; according to the reports to hand, on estimate the number of defenceless individuals killed would be 750,000”. 4) So, what kind of country was the Independent State of Croatia”, where these massacres took place? 2. The establishment of the Independent State of Croatia (1) Its geographical boundaries The founding of the “Independent State of Croatia” was announced during World War II on the 10th of April 1941, at which point Croatia achieved independence from Yugoslavia. This was four days after the invasion of Yugoslavia by Germany. However, only the Axis countries, including Japan, recognized its independence, and it did not become a recognized country under international law. The area of Croatia at that time was a large area including almost all of present-day Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Originally, Hitler had envisioned a solution to the problem by creating a smaller Croatia not including Bosnia, under the “Temporary Dissolution of Yugoslavia” on April the 12th. However, Mussolini, who was entrusted with the details of land distribution, gave permission for the unification with Bosnia, in exchange for allowing an area on the Adriatic Sea coast to be merged with his own country. As a result, “ethnic Croatians” made up no more than half of the total population of the country of six and a half million, and a third of the population were Serbian. 5) (2) The responsibility of the government Political power in the Independent State of Croatia was assumed by a terrorist organization called Ustase (“the uprisers”). The leader of Ustase was a lawyer named Ante Pavelić, who pursued independence as a leader of the Croatian Right’s Party between the wars. When the monarchic dictatorship came into being in 1929, he fled to Italy, where he began working for Ustase with the support of Mussolini. Ustase would not question the means if it were for the cause of the independence of Croatia: in 1934 they were responsible for the assassinations of 54 Croatia and “Ethnic Cleansing” King Aleksandar of Yugoslavia and the French Foreign Minister Barthou, together with the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization, and became an internationally notorious terrorist organization. 6) The ideal political structure for the Ustase was the Italian Fascist or Nazi German political system, but at this time, Germany itself did not consider Ustase to be a suitable negotiating partner, and it was left to Italy and Hungary for the most part to provide support for Ustase. It was not until April 1941 that Ustase received backing from the Germans and suddenly burst onto the political stage. At this time, Pavelić took on the title “Poglavnik”, equivalent to Mussolini’s title of “duce” (leader), and presided over what was a puppet-government for Nazi Germany. 7) However, besides the fact that there were only a few hundred party members of Ustase, the Rome Protocol of May 18th was considered “insulting to the Croatian Nation”, and the voices of Croatian citizens calling for the area to be placed under German protection were heard everywhere. Furthermore, vigorous in-fighting existed within the government, and there was no common political strategy other than expelling “enemies” and creating a larger Croatia. It was the Catholic church, with its nationwide organization, which supported the Ustase, whose own support base was weak. The Catholic clergy provided members of Ustase’s executive bodies, and also helped to attract new members. 8) (3) State policy on “solving the Serbian problem” The fundamental political guidelines of the Ustase government announced on April 11th, 1941, decreed that Serbian citizens were enemies of the state, and that a “solution to the Serbian problem” was the most important issue facing the nation. Leading figures in the government unveiled anti-Serbian propaganda, in particular, calling for the elimination of Serbs, at political rallies all over the country. The Minister of Justice, Mirko Puk claimed, at a meeting in Glina, that now was the time for the Serbs, “who had always opposed to the struggle for liberation of the Croatian people”, to return to Serbia. 9) Foreign Minister Lorković, in a speech at Donji Miholjac, made statements denying the right of Serbs as citizens of Croatia, saying “we must cleanse all elements of a people who are heretics and fundamentally different in nature to ourselves, who stunt the healthy growth of the Croatian people and who have for many decades thrown the Croatian people into evil. These are the Serbs and Jews who live in our territory.” 10) Žanić, the special representative of Ustase for Public Security, stressed, in a speech at Nova Gradiška, the necessity of eliminating all Serbs regardless of the means: “in order to make this country a true Croatian country, and to cleanse it of Serbs, there is no means that we, the Ustase, will not adopt. For several hundred years the Serbs have placed us in peril, and will surely threaten us again should the opportunity arise.” 11) Along with this incitement to kill Serbs, a modern Crusader-like meaning was also attached to the campaign. In a speech at Karlovac on June 13th, Justice Minister Puk stated that “the border between the eastern world and the western world is the Drina River... The fundamental standard for our actions is loyalty to the church and the Catholic faith. History teaches us that 55 Croatia and “Ethnic Cleansing” we would have been wiped out long ago were it not for the fact that we are Catholics”. 12) Ivo Guberina, leader of Pavelić’s personal bodyguards, and a Catholic priest, saw as his mission “to stand at the frontline of Catholic faith in the east, decided by divine providence.” He also stated that “to stand by is a crime against the Creator”, essentially demanding direct action. 13) This emphasis on the Catholic “mission” of the Croatians, as well as the movement to restore state Catholicism among Croatians, wedged as they were between Western civilization and the “savage” Balkans, was also a manifestation of the desire for a return to the Western fold.